I'm happy for him, and when I saw that he went off last night I checked his basketball reference page, and was kind of surprised that his #'s are actually worse (before last nights game) than they were in Portland. So I checked out his game log, and saw that he had 2 lemons in a row, and really it just appears that we will hear about his good games only and act like his bad games didn't happen.
Trent is streaky as a shooter and his defense is for a team that actually knows how to play team defense.
No argument from me on that. They both are in the east and not doing well. Pistons 16-37 last place. Cavs 19-33 12th seed. Are you suggesting Trent could do this against a .500 team or even a good team? We watched this guy this year just like Kanter. Both have good games and bad. There were games this board has screamed "Can't Play Kanter". We also had numerous game threads that were calling Trent a one trick pony that was way over rated on the defensive end.
I'm in favor of gouging Olshey at every opportunity (to start with, it's entertaining for my slightly troll-ish nature), but this isn't one of those opportunities...yet he traded a streaky young player, 8 years younger than Dame, for a more consistent established veteran that theoretically fits better into Dame's timeline. The narrative about frittering away Dame's prime points out the advisability of a Trent for Powell swap I do think that Powell is miscast as the starting SF, but that would be true of Trent as well. I would have preferred a trade for Gordon if Portland's cost would have been similar to Denver's. Gordon wouldn't have been miscast in the starting lineup, IMO
I really doubt that Powell is excited to try and cover for the shortcomings of CJ and Dame on the defensive end, while giving up shots and touches to them on offense. At this rate with his opinion about our defense and the fact that he's scoring five less per game, Powell will leave and we will be left with nothing. If that happens this is disastrous and a huge fuck up. If Powell re-signs it might not even be a good deal... I didn't like how small Gary was at SF, so obviously I'm not too excited about Powell playing there, even though he seems to be a defensive upgrade over Gary at this point in their careers. The fact is, if you can get a guy who is known as a really good defender and is scoring 20 ppg then you know that Gary had value. So for me getting a longer term asset than less than half a season was crucial. I guess the question is, are Powell's bird rights worth as much as Gary's RFA rights and to me the answer is simply no. It's too big of a gamble and honestly the only way that I see it paying off is if both Stotts and CJ are gone and we can convince Powell that playing next to Dame is the place where his career will flourish the most. In that situation as well, Neil fucked up because the only way Stotts and CJ are gone is if Neil is fired.
More needs to change than just trading CJ, but yes, this is a good start. Every year we keep CJ and Stotts is another year we've wasted of Dame's career.
